Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/817

Rh wonder. Science, challenging these separate pretensions, and testing their results, regards them with indifference—an indifference only exasperated into antagonism by the clamorous urgency of unauthenticated praise. It is difficult to direct the opposing streams of criticism into the broad, equable current of a calm appreciation, because the splendor of his fame perpetuates the memory of his failure, and to be just we must appreciate both. His intellect was piercing and comprehensive; his attainments surpassed those of every known philosopher; his influence has only been exceeded by the great founders of religions. Nevertheless, if we now estimate the product of his labors in the discovery of positive truths, it appears insignificant when not erroneous. None of the great germinal discoveries in science are due to him or to his disciples." The question to be decided does not concern Aristotle's splendid and perhaps unrivaled genius, his logical power of thought, his love of truth, and his extraordinary diligence; it has reference to the claim made by Aristotle's too ardent panegyrists, that he discovered a system so perfect as to leave little, if anything, for us to alter, that in several instances he anticipated modern discoveries, and that his descriptions are marvels of accuracy and research. How far such statements are true must be discovered by the simple test of reading Aristotle's own words, and for this purpose some of the extracts employed to illustrate a recent comparison of the above conflicting opinions in the "Edinburgh Review" will be instructive.

Let us inquire how far Cuvier's statement that "everywhere Aristotle observes facts with attention" is true. In describing the elephant, Aristotle tells many things correctly, but some very incorrectly, so that it is a question whether he ever saw this animal in his life. He affirms that it has no nails on its toes, though he correctly refers to the toes, which are scarcely distinguished. The nails of the elephant are one of the "points" which the natives of India always regarded as marks of a well-bred animal, and are usually conspicuous. Let us take another point, the "gray-headed error" that the elephant has no joints. Aristotle says, "The elephant is not so constructed as to be unable to sit down and bend his legs, as some persons have said, but from his great weight he is unable to bend them on both sides at once, but leans either to the right side or the left, and sleeps in this position." That is to say, the elephant, having bent one fore-leg, can not then bend the other so as to kneel with both, which is contrary to fact. Although in this passage Aristotle demolishes the absurd statement that the elephant has no knee-joints, yet, in his treatise on the "Progressive Motions of Animals," he seems to leave the matter in doubt. After showing that without inflection there can be no progression, he says: "Progression, however, is possible without inflection of the leg, in the same manner as infants creep; and there is an ancient story of this kind about elephants, which is not true, for such animals move because inflection takes place in their shoulder-blades or hips." The